Brocante Workshop Originals

We have gotten our workshop busy making up some original upcycled items, including beautiful herb plant and cheese plate markers made of old silverplate cutlery. We have been collecting old cutlery for months now. We are using vintage silverplate that is not in good order for using as cutlery, or is orphaned and can’t fit well into a mixed setting. Or in some cases we are using “odd” sorts of cutlery, like fish knife sets, which aren’t very popular or useful now. To make the markers we obtained some sets of lettering stamps to imprint them with words. I bundle the cutlery pieces up before they go to Ian in the workshop to make them up. Some sets feature herb names and others feature cheese types. Each set has handles from different patterns of cutlery, for a pretty bit of variety.

Ian carefully positions the letter stamp into the handle of the cutlery. And then he has to give it a very sharp and forceful whack with a mallet to imprint the letter. Then he repeats the process with each of the other letters, lining them up as straight as he is able and holding them steady while hitting with the mallet. I can tell you this is not easy and requires strength and a very steady aim. (I have tried and did not get a good imprint, and would not have got them straight either !) You only get one shot at getting this right ! Ian checks the lettering imprints (Quality Control !)

The usual “business” end of the cutlery gets sawed off and then filed for a neat finish.

The lettering then looks very nice, but a bit hard to read at this point. We use dark wax to polish up the lettering and also the detail of the piece. Very little of it goes on, and most of it gets rubbed away. After it is dry, I buff the pieces and again sort them for packaging up.

The packaging took us a week to work out to satisfaction. We print the label and attach it to card stock. Ian carefully measures for the cutlery marker to attach and creates tidy holes to thread copper wiring to hold each marker into place. The wires are very neatly tied off on backs of the cards.

These are 100% Australian designed and made. Locally created here in our Angaston workshop in the Barossa Valley. They make lovely and unique gifts. We are pleased to offer these in boutique and from November 4th will also offer them available for purchase online in our online shop (on this website, see SHOP links in menu bar above).